Timeline for Seventh St. construction still up in the air
By Don Winter
When’s the work on Seventh Street going to start, shouldn’t they be working on that by now? Go anywhere in Washburn where folks gather and that is the most common question heard. The answer was put forward at the Washburn City Commissioners meeting Monday night by Dave Thompson of Toman Engineering, the city’s engineering firm. When the bid had been let for the project, it was award to Northern Excavating Company of Jamestown. According to Thompson the bid stated that the project had a completion date for the project of June 26. He had been in contact with Northern and as of yet had not received a firm start date for the project to begin. A representative of Northern Excavating was present at the meeting to answer the commissioner’s questions. His reply as to why the project had not been started yet was that the long winter and late spring had pushed them back four or five weeks later than they had planned to start their construction year. "Currently they are working on wrapping up an already started project and Ellendale, and still running into water issues." When asked by the commission as to when they would be able to start the project, the response was "probably either the second or third week in July." Thompson said, "During the preconstruction meeting that occurred on May 26 Northern had not indicated that it would not be able to meet the construction date."
